Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-11-01

(From ssThe Citizen.'')

are again busy with their misrepresenta-
tons OF the eminent American citizen
whose pleasure trip to Europe has been
made the occasion for foul abuse and base
accusations. A Paris dispatch to the New
York Herald, which was copied by nearly
all the morning papers Of last Sunday. con-
tanned a statement that Mr.. Blaine at a
dinner given by Lord Salisbury, "aston-
ished everyone in general at the table. and
Lord Salisbury in particular, by the violent
way In which he pitched into the Irish
Inc correspondent, or mouchard rather.
gives az his authority "a member Of par
lament who happened to ait near Mr..
Blaine" at the apocryphal dinner referred
to.
The object Of the ealumny il 20 obvious
that it calls for little comment. The anti
Blaine politicians, fully conscious Of the
gentieman's strength with American citi-
zens Of Irish birth or descent. are doing
their utmost to detach that element from
him. In this infamous policy the mug
wump republican papers are even more
conspicuous than the INTERCHANGEABLE. II
IL moral assassination in its vilest form.
Mr. Murat Halstead, the famous editor
OF the Cincinnati Gazette, who was in Lon
don during Blaine's visit, and is conversant
with all the facts, says in regard to this
latest telegraphic outrage upon the emf
nent statesman:
Ii happens that our Geographic association
IN Paris is with the New York Herald which
has the best news machinery in Europe that
any American journal Possesses, but one of
the pecnliarties of the Herald Is its inability
TO estimate Mr.. Blaine fairly as a citizen and
gentleman and its dispatches partake some
what Of the flavor of the nonsense with which
the enemies of Mr.. Blaine console themselves
for the fact that, in retirement a. retired as
he can make it, he is still man as interesting
as any one in the world, and, though in pri-
vate life, public power that has TO be count
ed as among the national infuences---one of
the dozen living men who signify something
positive when their respective nations are
taken into consideration. Presidents aud
Kings and other alleged rulers are not count
ed in this list. There is not one of those high
sitters now in the world whose departure
would make an appreciable difference TO the
people supposed To be governed. The Herald,
as we were saying, undertakes Mr. Blaine,
and there is that in the dispatches from Paris
that is not fair and Is not true. Take the
story to-day that Mr.. Blaine abused the Irish
so as to astonish even Lord Salisbury at din
ner, cabled to the New York Herald from
Paris, viz "A member of Parliament who
happened to sit near Mr.. Blaine at a dinner
4 k..I.a IL.
Blaine astonishcd everyone in general at the
table, and Lord Salisbury in particular, by
the violent way in which he pitched into the
Irish"
Now Mfr. Blaine did not meet Lord Sails
bury, and declined an invitation to meet him
Mr.. Blaine, as an ex-Secretary of State
would, in the natural course of events, have
met Salisbury, who has charge of the foreign
affairs of the British Empire, but he did not
wish tn see him because he had been one of
the iiercest and bitterest of the Tories against
the United States during the war of the rebel
lion, and Blaine wrote of him in his Twenty
Years of Congress" with severity. Salisbury
was then Sir Robert Cecil and Blaine did
not hit him lick that he did not deserve.
They overlook these matters of historical
personal differences II good deal in Europe,
but Mr.. Blaine did not feel at liberty to do
go in this case, and did not meet Salisbury
and the story that he abused the Irish Mt any
table is a self-cvident fabrication, especially
as Mr.. Blaine was looked on in English
society one who was the strong friend of
ireland and to that extent the enemy of
England.
Mr.. Blaine Is not the kind of man to
pitch into" any nationality, least of all
the one which broke away boldly from
old party ties and affiliations, because
they admired his statesmanike genius,
and the manly manner in which he up
held American rights, and forwarded
American interests, while he was Sccrc-
tary of State. In fact during Mr.. Blane's
last visit to Chicago, several months ago,
he showed his high appreciation of Irish
American sentiment in his regard by re-
ceiving, although far from well at the
time the members of the Irish-Amcrican
Republican Club of this city in body at
his private parlors in the Grand Pacific
Hotel, This recognition he did not ac-
cord to any other society, not because he
wished to make individious distinctions.
hut because he was fully conscious that
three-fourths of the men who constituted
the club left the democratic party on his
account. Blaine produced the first really
great split in the solid Irish democratic
phalanX, and the hostile politicians, mug
wump and democratic, are terribly afraid
that that split will grow larger if Blaine
Ia b., al 70 h.,
rs he ought to be by the republican party.
II is fortunate that the lrish-American
element, warned by the Burchard three
RS" treachery, and educated up to a
plane of political liberation which has
confounded those who formerly considered
themselves slaves of a particular party in
this country, can Judge impartially be-
tween Mr.. Blaine and his accusers. No
man who was ever the popular choice for
president escaped the dagger of the moral
assassin, but no eminent American who
preceded him suffered Mt the hands of a
partisan and preiudiced press such abom-
Unable abuse as the Hon. James &. Blaine.
In his case the repositories of filth have
been unlocked that their contents might
be hurled at his devoted head, and the
honorable profession of journalism has
been insulted by the employment of re-
portorial spies whose calling is quite as
degraded as that of any French mouchard,
Russian gendarme, or Irish police in
former. Scullery maids gossip, keyhole
whisperings, buffers maudlin condolences
and footmen's well tipped garrulity have
been the fetid foundations of the most
unmanly persecution ever put upon any
man in any country, savage or civilized.
But all this political rutlianism will recoil
on the heads of its dastarsilv authors, and
Blaine's name will live in the grateful re-
memhrance of his country when the iden-
titv of his vilifiers shall he lost on the
shores of the ocean of time as the identity
of few dozen grains of sand on Natures
scashore is lost among the countless bill